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POLITICO Europe hires Alex Spence for media, as slew of hires, bureaus is announced

POLITICO Europe has hired Alex Spence as its European media correspondent, a sign that readers of the soon-to-launch venture can expect aggressive coverage of the continent's industry sagas.

The former Times of London media editor "will write about the personalities, economic forces, political fights and policy debates reshaping the media scene in Britain and on the Continent," POLITICO Europe's top editors wrote in a Wednesday memo to staff.

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While Spence's brief is bigger than Britain, his beat will no doubt be U.K.-centric given the vigorous, some might say cut-throat spirit of the country's media space, which was ground zero for the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal that captivated the world just several years ago.

"Along with Westminster and the City of London, Fleet Street is one of the three poles of power in Britain," the editors wrote, using the historical slang for London's newspaper scene, which ranges from lurid tabloids like Rupert Murdoch's Sun to venerable titles like The Guardian, itself a major player on the media beat. They added: "Alex owned this beat when he was the media editor at the Times of London."

Spence's exit from The Times earlier this year, however, was clouded in drama as a result of a scoop about The Sun that ruffled some feathers. Both papers are owned by News Corp.

Spence was one of numerous new hires announced in Wednesday's memo as POLITICO Europe, a digital and print hybrid produced in partnership with the German media company Axel Springer, gears up for its April 21 debut.

The Washington D.C.-oriented website and newspaper POLITICO has shaken up coverage of U.S. politics and policy since its 2007 launch, and its leaders hope to bring the same sensibility to Europe, with a focus on the Brussels-based European Union. POLITICO, whose owner acquired Capital in 2013, also is embarking on an expansion of its footprint in the states. The business model is a combination of free, advertiser-supported content and high-priced subscriptions aimed at politics, policy and media professionals.

Led by Wall Street Journal veteran Matthew Kaminski, POLITICO Europe has built up a newsroom of about three dozen, including alumni of The New York Times, The Economist, Newsweek and the New York Post. In addition to Brussels and London, there will be bureaus in Paris and Berlin at launch, and journalists will be added to other European cities.

The full memo on the latest hires is below:

To the team:

As we approach liftoff in less than a week, take a moment to look around the newsroom.

You’re now 36 journalists. There are 20 nationalities between you. You call four continents home and speak a dozen languages. You’re a uniquely varied, energetic and smart group of journalists. You’ve come together in just a few weeks to create a new and different kind of publication on the Continent.

This adventure is only beginning. Following the announcement last month of our the first large wave of editorial hires, we wanted to share some new, exciting additions to the POLITICO team in Europe. All these hires respond to the challenge that the leadership of our joint venture—POLITICO in Washington and Axel Springer in Berlin—gave us at the start: To create a newsroom that is genuinely international in character and outlook, overflowing with talent and ambition.

Matthew Karnitschnig will spearhead coverage of German politics and the European economy. As Chief Germany Correspondent, Matt will head up our Berlin office. He comes to POLITICO after an outstanding 15-year run at the Wall Street Journal. Matt covered Central Europe from Vienna (his family is Austrian), worked in Frankfurt, and most recently was WSJ’s Berlin bureau chief and chief Europe correspondent. In between his European tours he covered mergers and acquisitions, the most competitive beat at the Journal in New York; he was part of a team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for reporting on the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Since 2009, he has helped direct, edit and report the Journal’s coverage of the euro crisis from Berlin, for which the paper won a 2012 Overseas Press Club prize and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2011.

Planting the POLITICO flag in London is Alex Spence, our new European Media Correspondent. He’ll write about the personalities, economic forces, political fights and policy debates reshaping the media scene in Britain and on the Continent. Along with Westminster and the City of London, Fleet Street is one of the three poles of power in Britain. We couldn’t get a better journalist to cover it. Alex owned this beat when he was the media editor at the Times of London. In his decade at that paper, he covered stories involving financial crime and corporate governance, including the legal battle royal of Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and the late Boris Berezovsky, turmoil at the Serious Fraud Office and the composition of Britain’s top boardrooms. He came to London from his native New Zealand, where his magazine stories on Islam in Indonesia, the horse-racing industry and clinical depression won several prizes. We’ve warned him that he’ll be outnumbered by three Australians on staff at POLITICO in Europe. Alex says he’s one Kiwi who doesn’t mind Aussies—he’s married to one.

Also based in London, Ben Judah becomes a Contributing Writer. Ben, the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin, has recently finished work on a book about London. He has been a regular contributor to POLITICO MAGAZINE. In his new role, Ben will report on the U.K election campaign and fallout and write on other European topics.

POLITICO now has offices in London, Berlin and Paris, and we’ll add staff in other key European capitals in coming weeks.

At the same time, we’ve strengthened our editing team in Brussels. Stephen Brown becomes Deputy Managing Editor. He’ll oversee our daily reporting and work with the rest of the editorial leadership team to guide coverage. Stephen picked up six languages in a distinguished three-decade career with Reuters. He was the chief of their southern Latin America bureau in Buenos Aires, and later the Nordic and Baltic states bureau out of Stockholm. His last two jobs were chief correspondent for Italy and currently Germany. He’ll be moving from Berlin to Brussels with his wife, an Argentinian artist, and two daughters.

Landing from Washington this week, Kim Dixon is POLITICO’s European Health Policy Editor. She’ll oversee a team of five reporters who cover healthcare and other issues. She will also write stories. With her arrival, we’ll have dedicated editors for the three dedicated Pro policy coverage areas in place. Kim brings invaluable experience at POLITICO Pro. She was the Tax Editor for POLITICO and before then reported for Reuters on health care, financial issues and tax policy. Kim grew up in Long Island, New York.

Noelle Knox will lead a five-person tech reporting team at POLITICO. Noelle joins us in Brussels from the Wall Street Journal in New York. While she is new to POLITICO, Noelle is ideally suited to oversee POLITICO Pro Tech. She helped design and lead a premium real estate news product at the Associated Press and for the past two years ran the CFO Journal, the WSJ’s specialized service tailored for financial executives. Her move to Belgium is a sort of homecoming. Noelle was previously USA Today’s Europe correspondent based in Brussels.

David Meyer, who’ll be based in Berlin, joined us last week as a European tech reporter. A South African native, David got a dual degree in English and archeology in Cape Town, worked as a medical secretary and toy demonstrator, and aspired to rock stardom in London. He ended up doing some broadcast production work for the BBC and got into tech journalism with ZDNet, covering British telecoms for six years. He became the European tech correspondent for Gigaom in 2012, exposing the dark side of the .io domain name and chronicling Google's regulatory woes at the EU, which he’ll follow closely for us. He and his wife, a German national, live in Berlin.

On the tech beat in Brussels is Zoya Sheftalovich, who’s part of our Australian wave (along with Playbook writer Ryan Heath and Reporter James Panichi). Raised in Sydney, Zoya was born in Chernovtsy, then in Soviet Ukraine, where she says she learned to “use my elbows.” She speaks Russian fluently. Down Under, Zoya was a champion debater, a legal researcher, a political (and POLITICO) obsessive, an editor and an investigative reporter. For the past five years, she wrote and broke stories for CHOICE, the Australian Consumers Association. She’ll work closely with David and Noelle.

Pitching in on the tech regulatory story is Nick Hirst, who becomes POLITICO’s competition policy reporter. He’ll cover the intersection of business and policy in Brussels. Nick was a reporter at the European Voice and Mergermarket, a trade publication. He began his professional career as a lawyer with degrees from the College of Europe, City University and Oxford. He can talk to lawyers like a lawyer—and write about them like a journalist. He has an English father, a French mother and since last month, an Argentinian wife.

Sara Stefanini joins our energy team in May, reporting to Energy Editor Jan Cienski and working alongside Kalina Oroschakoff. Currently based in London, Sara was the Asia Pacific editor at Interfax Energy. She’s the daughter of an Italian diplomat, grew up on several continents (including Australia) and went to college and graduate school in the U.S.

Our Brussels politics team has a great new addition in Maïa de la Baume, who’ll focus on the European Parliament. No mainstream publication has a dedicated parliamentary reporter, and we intend to fill that gap. As that institution has carved out new powers for itself in recent years, it deserves some attention and scrutiny. Maïa, who’s French, has spent the past six years as a Paris-based reporter for the New York Times, writing memorable features about being switched at birth, the sex lives of the disabled and other topics.

Most of you have met her in person or electronically but we wanted to formally introduce Esther King, who joined last month as our editorial assistant. Esther hails from Brussels, speaks Belgium's three national languages (French, Flemish and German) and holds a history degree from Colby College in Maine, where she was a reporter and editor on the weekly newspaper. After graduation, she worked in publishing in New York. Esther, who reports to Matt, has already become indispensable in the newsroom. She’ll also be editing and writing for POLITICO.

Please join us in congratulating and wishing everyone the best of luck in their new jobs.